Deadline Man

“Ryan?” Amber knocks again, louder. “Hello?”

Nothing. Not a voice, not the creak of footsteps coming to answer. She knocks a third time.

This time the door moves an inch. I see a pair of pale legs on the floor.

“Ryan?” I push the door open and we see it: a thin man with a messy mop of brown hair and a belt around his neck. The belt is hooked to the end of the bed and looped around his neck. His body is turned at an angle. His head is cocked at an angle, as if waiting for an answer. It’s not quite as low as his left shoulder and his face, turned down nearly to the floor, is gray, his lips nearly blue. It doesn’t look like enough to kill someone, but apparently it was.

“Fuck!” Amber rushes past me, kneels and takes his pulse.

The man wears only a pair of jeans. No shoes or socks. One pants leg has ridden up, exposing part of his right calf. He’s lost control of his bowels and the smell assaults us.

“We have to get him down, do CPR.”

I stop her. “Amber, he’s cold. We need to call 911. We shouldn’t even be in here.” It’s a suicide kind of room, maybe twelve feet square and barely lit by a pair of small, dirty windows that look directly into another old building. Besides the bed, there’s a folding chair, a student desk with an iPod in a speaker setup, and a dead plant. It is the kind of plant a girl gives her boyfriend and he forgets to water it. The bathroom looks tiny and part of the floor is covered with plywood. A closet door stands open near the head of the bed. Inside are clothes and plastic storage containers. Another door is on the same wall, on the side of the bed closer to the windows. It’s closed. Maybe a kitchen. I bend down to examine a tattoo on his bluish skin.

I’m about to say something to Amber. Something important. I need a witness, if only for my own sanity. But something stops me. I’ve never had a sixth sense. Jill claimed she did. Yet at that instant I draw a strange breath, feel my scalp leap a millimeter on my skull, and know we aren’t alone in the room.

“Oh, fuck…” Amber whispers what seems to be her favorite word as we both see the two dogs.

They stand silently in the open doorway, seeming too short to be much of a menace, their ears perking up playfully. But I take in their heavy dun-colored heads, weight-lifter chests, and piston front legs. Pit bulls. The sudden apocalyptic barking puts an end to any notion that we aren’t in deep shit.

“Don’t move,” I say.

I force back the gusher of panic inside, looking around the sad little room seeking another way out. I only move my head, very slowly. The movement sends jolts of pain into my neck and shoulders. The dogs both stop barking as if on cue and start growling. Their big eyes are black and fixed on us. One bares its teeth, white and sharp. They look the size of a saber-toothed tiger’s. They are maybe seven feet away. They are a strong, crazy-bred dog’s leap away, and the only thing between us and them is the body of Megan Nyberg’s dead boyfriend. They block the door out as well as whatever refuge the bathroom might afford. Amber’s cell phone sits useless in her hand. We’ll be dogfood before any help arrives. The other door is closer, the kitchen that might even have another door out or at least let us out to a fire escape. We could reach it, maybe. We could keep the bed between us and the dogs, unless they’re smart enough to just jump over it. I haven’t been too damned smart up to this point.

The door is an eternal six feet away, but I nod to Amber and we both start edging in that direction.

“Down!” I say, mustering my most commanding yet calm voice. “Bad dog!”

The growling grows in intensity. Even the sound of their slobber being inhaled sounds chilling.

Hell. It was worth a try, at least.

The pair follows us, but they’re just walking.

Suddenly I grab Amber by the arm; she’s so light I pick her off her feet, and bolt to the door. It opens. I throw her inside and follow, slamming the door behind us.

It’s another closet. I curse the building’s long-dead architect, teasing bastard. But my oaths are drowned out by the dogs. The barking has turned to primal, banshee shrieks. Instantly the door explodes as one or both dogs hit it. The doorknob shakes and jerks. Amber grabs me tightly.

“I have claustrophobia!” she half whispers, half screams. “I can’t do this!” She is shaking so hard it transmits to me. “I have to get out!”

“No way.” I hold her close as they hit the door again. This time the wood bows in ominously.

“Call nine-one-one,” I order, detaching myself from her. She opens her phone, the lighted face somehow reassuring. But at that instant they hit the door again, a bone-jarring sound. One panel starts to split. The splinters shower my hand.

As Amber yells into the phone, I feel for a light-switch, then I feel around in the dark. I pray: Please be a gun nut, Ryan, please make my day. I enviously recall the monstrous silver revolver in the holster of the fed. Amber still clings to my arm. The barking outside the door escalates: deep voices roaring and snarling. Then the door explodes and light pours in from a fist-size hole, followed by a snout with teeth. I push us against the far corner of the tiny cell.

Over the barking, I yell, “We can’t wait for help here.” Mr. Obvious.

Clothes, boots, smelly socks… Then, a baseball bat. I grab it and use it as a spear against the snout, which withdraws without a sound.

In the silence that follows, I give Amber instructions. I use some of Ryan’s coats to pad her against dog bites. I zip up her coat. I have her tie a sweater around my left arm, as if the knitting will really cushion against those crushing jaws.

When I open the door the dogs don’t spring at us. They are crouched intelligently in front of our only way out. I walk first, slowly advancing on them. When one attacks, he is instantly longer, in the air, his mouth headed to my face. I take a desperate jab of the bat and I can hear its teeth break. In the instant that the dog pauses, I take a savage swing downward on its skull. The dog’s scream is high-pitched and short. The second dog backs away, growling. Its muzzle is bleeding. We make it into the hallway and past the fire door into the stairs. I slam it securely. Jim Morrison stares at us soulfully from the small window. Then a sudden slamming explosion from the other side, and Jim’s iconic face cracks and crumples.

“Are you okay?” Amber, suddenly calm, puts a hand on my shoulder. She says my name. “You don’t look well…”

Okay is a relative term. We’re alive and unharmed. But the body back in that apartment had a tattoo on the right calf. It said it in simple blue ink: